The Heart of the Team

Chapter 16

Things seemed to stay normal for about a week.

It was the last day of June, and somehow it managed to be even hotter than before.
We were all sitting around in the dugout, waiting for Benny, Smalls and Quinn to show up.

"This heat is killing me!" Ham whined.
"We're all baking Ham, not just you." Bertrum shot back.
"Yeah Yeah it's not just Lizzy this time." Yeah-Yeah was slumped over the back of the bench, and very close to falling on the ground.

"Shut up!" I exclaimed shoving him, so he fell off the bench.

A few minutes later, Yeah-Yeah having still not bothered to get up, Benny and the others approached the dugout.

"Benny it's way too hot out for baseball!"
"Yeah-Yeah! No way I'm playin today!" Yeah-Yeahs voice was slightly muffled by the ground, but his point stood.

Everyone choursed their agreement and Benny sighed.
"Well If we aren't playing baseball what are we gonna do?"

All the boys grinned and I knew what they were thinking.
"Pool day!" They all yelled.

I groaned, "Didn't you guys get banned for life?"
"Actually it was only the summer, DeNunez was just being dramatic." Squints laughed.

"Drama queen." I muttered.

"Right, everybody meet back here with there swim stuff in ten minutes!" Benny announced.

Everyone took off running and I sighed standing up. Of all the things we did that wasn't baseball growing up, swimming was the one Benny enjoyed most, and I enjoyed least.

"Cheer up Eliza, it's not like you're gonna die." Benny said as we started down our street.
"You don't know that."
I rolled my eyes and followed Alexander up to the house.

"Why are you so against going swimming?" he asked as I dug through a box looking for my swim suit.
"You know how I feel about it." I said finally finding it.

He sighed "Lizabeth..."

I shook my head and passed him to the bathroom and started to change.
"You do know that he doesn't care about your scars right? He thinks the world of you."

I pulled a hoodie over my swimsuit and opened the door, "Who does?"

"Oh come on Lizabeth! You know I'm talking about Benny boy."

I leaned against the wall "He doesn't thin- he does think what ever you just said."
"Mhhhhm."

It didn't take us long to finish getting ready and meet the boys back at the Sandlot.

"Finally you two were taking for-ev-er." Squints said, over pronouncing forever, as usual.

"Sorry, I was trying to convince Elizabeth that she isn't fat." Alexander said elbowing me.
"Shut up!" I said shoving him back.
"I was just telling them why we were late, Lizabeth."
"And I said Shut Up!"

Ham rolled his eyes "What ever let's just go, it's too hot to stand around here and argue."
Everyone made sounds of agreement and we started out for the public pool.

I walked alongside Smalls, making jokes about the others.

Soon enough we made it to the pool, almost immediately I saw Alexander start checking out a girl.
All the boys and Quinn immediately ditched there over clothes, and jumped into the pool.

I quickly ducked back to avoid the splash, barely holding in a laugh as Alexander got the whole splash. "Is that normal?" He asked wiping wet hair from his face.